It was the week running up to the August bank holiday in 2007 when Karen Errington, Phil Mason and their four children moved into The Rat Inn, high above Northumberland’s Tyne Valley.

For the previous five years the couple had run the acclaimed Green Room restaurant in Hexham. But they had always hankered after their own traditional country pub so when The Rat Inn came on the market they jumped at the chance to take it on.

On the food front, the fortunes of the former drovers’ inn atop a steep hill in the hamlet of Anick had waxed and waned over the years. When Karen, 54, and Phil, 47, received the keys to the 18th Century hostelry, it is fair to say it was better known as an old style country boozer than for its food.

So with just a matter of days to turn the menu around, the pair had little expectation of a busy bank holiday weekend.

How wrong they were. “That first weekend, we served 150 people in just one day alone,” Karen recalls. “It was astoundingly busy. We were amazed.”

Chef Kevin MacLean (Image: Newcastle Journal)

They probably shouldn’t have been. Anick is only two and a half miles from Hexham, where Karen and Phil had already built up a loyal clientele and a well-deserved reputation at the Green Room for their mainly locally sourced British-inspired food.

Based in Hexham Station, the restaurant where Phil had held court in the kitchen with Karen front of house had notched up an impressive list of Michelin Guide recommendations since opening in 2003.

News spread quickly that the couple who had successfully raised the bar in terms of dining out in the Tyne Valley were now settled at The Rat.

The August bank holiday weekend rush turned out to be no flash in the pan. Diners – whether effortlessly arriving by car or breathlessly pedalling on their bikes – continued to wend their way up the vertically challenging approach to The Rat, as it is affectionately known.

With Phil heading up the kitchen and Karen behind the bar, the unsolicited accolades soon began pouring in. Within weeks they had had a Michelin inspection and once again found themselves on the prestigious guide’s list of recommended restaurants.

Harden’s, Sawday’s and the Good Food Guide soon followed suit.

Then in 2011 came the unexpected news that The Rat Inn had made it on to the UK’s influential Top 50 Gastropub list, going straight in at number 41. The following year The Rat’s star had risen to number 38.

Voted for by industry experts, including food writers and chefs, there is no higher accolade for a pub than a Michelin star – a gastronomic honour, it has to be said, that until recently would never have been considered possible for hospitality businesses operating in this sector.

It was, Karen states, “the most amazing feeling. The Top 50 Gastropub list is the one every pub wants to be on, especially as it is voted for by your peers. It’s not something you can enter and it was an astonishing feeling knowing we were deemed good enough to be on it.

“The Top 50 Gastropub list is very competitive and there are some incredible places on it, run by Michelin star chefs. When we reached number 38 we thought we couldn’t go any higher, but we continued to rise and were ranked number 13 three years ago. Then we got to number 11.

“Hand on heart, to just be on the list was incredible. There are only 50 places on it and to make it to number 11 was mind-blowing. But it is a double-edged sword as potentially the only way to go is down.”

The Rat Inn, Anick, Northumberland (Image: Newcastle Journal)

This year The Rat is on at number 14. But it is still the highest placed pub in the North East, ahead of Terry Laybourne’s The Broad Chare, on Newcastle Quayside, at number 18 and The Staith House, run by former MasterChef: The Professionals finalist John Calton, on North Shields Fish Quay, at number 24.

Karen isn’t fazed. “Number 14 is still really high. There is a lot of movement on the list and loads of competition out there with new places opening all the time. Sixteen pubs went out of the list this year, which means 16 new ones have come on.

“I would never say to anyone that we are the 14th best pub in the country, but we always aim to be up there with the very best. A lot of the names in the top 10 have Michelin stars and the lines have become blurred between what is a pub and what is a restaurant.

“We are very much a pub that believes in good service and honest food and which likes to try new things.

“But at the end of the day we just want to be the best we can be. We are a pub and we are very proud to be a pub.”

Other tributes have followed. Last month (as you will have read), head chef Kevin MacLean took top spot in the Parliamentary Pub Chef of the Year competition. Run by the British Beer and Pub Association and the All-Party Parliamentary Group, he was proposed by Hexham MP Guy Opperman for his chef skills at The Rat.

More than 130 nominations were received from MPs across the country for the award.

And Phil, who still cooks in the pub kitchen, has just completed his second year in a row in the Scotch Egg Challenge at the Canonbury Tavern in London, where he only narrow missed out on the honours.

While Karen and Phil don’t actively chase praise, it doesn’t do the inn’s reputation any harm. “We are just a small pub so, yes, of course accolades are important as they help get our name out there,” Karen says.

But it’s not just about ensuring The Rat Inn stays on the food map. For Karen and Phil it is also about flying the flag for the North East. “Awards like this are important in highlighting the region as a whole as a food tourism destination, and also to encourage young people into the industry. We need more young people choosing cooking as a career.”

If it sounds like a food fairytale (or should that be rat tail?), the last 11 years haven’t been without their challenges. Not everyone in the early days approved of Karen and Phil’s plans.

The Rat Inn, Anick, Northumberland (Image: Newcastle Journal)

“We had a few diehard locals in the bar who looked at the menu and said it would never work, so we had to be quite fixed in our ideas, believe in what we were doing and get on with it, which is what we have done,” Karen recalls.

But while some locals may have had their doubts, Karen and Phil have always stayed loyal to home-grown suppliers with as many ingredients as possible sourced from people earning their living in the surrounding Northumberland countryside.

Karen says: “The menu is driven by what is available to us, with a heavy accent on meat and game, situated as we are in the middle of farming land. Using local produce and the connection that gives, we think, makes the food more special.

“For example, one of the girls who works for us rears pigs, so having that meat on our menu and served to customers by the person who has cared for those animals, I think, is a very special thing. We use a lot of organically grown veg. Again, that means the menu is driven by what is brought to us.

“We have always grown our own herbs at the pub but we are now growing our own vegetables as we have a large plot at home, so planning and trying out new ingredients to grow is exciting for Kevin, Phil and the team.

“In style, our food in the main is quite classic, but you will still see influences from other cultures if we think it enhances the main component of the dish.”

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The seasonal menu changes daily but can include the following: Northumberland rib of beef for two; belly of pork with celeriac, curly kale and spiced rhubarb; east coast fish pie; braised blade of beef in red wine; and beer-battered coley fillet with hand cut chips and mushy peas.

Everything from the chutneys to the bread and ice cream are made in-house.

Despite its success, there is nothing glitzy or fake olde worlde about the pub although there is some mystery surrounding its strange name.

One school of thought is that it derives from it once being a favoured drinking haunt for the area’s rodent catchers. Another is that a former landlord who passed information to the Crown during the Jacobite uprisings of 1715 and 1745 was known as ‘the rat’.

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You will still find flagstone floors, wooden beams, tankards on shelves, log fires and pine tables, along with, bizarrely, chamber pots hanging from the ceiling.

Karen reveals: “We have kept the pub traditional and cosy and stayed true to its roots with no modern make-over. It’s a historical place and you can feel that as you walk in. That is a definite plus... and becoming more of a rarity these days.”